Vestas American Wind Technology, Inc. said Wednesday
that it would close three
U.S. research and development offices and cut 85 jobs by the end of the second
quarter in 2013.

The
Danish wind turbine company, which employs less than 300 at its North American
sales and service hub in Portland's Pearl District, said that in addition to
closing R&D operations in Houston and Marlborough, Mass., its Louisville,
Colo., facility also will close.

Vestas
said it also closed R&D locations this year in China, Denmark and
Singapore, and reduced its R&D employee base by about 20 percent compared
with 2011. In the U.S.,

Vestas
faces a global slowdown in the wind energy industry. The company has laid off about 500 of its 1,700 workers in Colorado, and seen
gradual attrition in Portland, where its new headquarters builidng was heavily
subsidized by taxpayers